Saving Both Lives
by ShanTV Broadway
Summary: The day her brother died, Danny Reagan promised his partner Maria Baez that he would always be there for her. So when she becomes pregnant and later kidnapped by a mystery man, he goes in too deep and takes matters into his own hands to find and protect her...which ultimately leads to the threat of death for both detectives, and Baez’s child.


Having his partner come to him and confess she's pregnant was the last thing Danny Reagan had expected when he had walked into the station that morning. Even more so when she wouldn't say who the father was.

Baez had always tried to separate her personal life from the job, but even prodding her with questions to the point of her blowing her top wasn't enough to get her to talk to him.

When he confronted her again, this time at her apartment, she admitted it had been a one night stand after an extravagant date with some random guy that had moved into her building a few weeks ago.

"The day after I told him, he was gone," Maria said solemnly. "So…I guess I'm doing this on my own."

Danny left the subject at that. "Anything you need, I got your back," he told her.

"I know."

Since her brother's death, Baez's mother and sister had tried desperately to separate her work from their time together. But after learning about the pregnancy and her desire to stay on the job, they drew the line and insisted she stay off the streets. With Maria deciding to keep working despite their concerns, Ana refused to be near her, furious at her sister for risking her own child's life as she had Javi's.

This left their mother caught between them; she was wanting to offer her love and support for her future grandchild, but still a part of her also disappointed in her daughter's recklessness in continuing to chase criminals.

Maria didn't want her personal life to interfere with any of their cases, but she had a feeling that these new raging hormones would have something to say about it. Especially since her child would apparently never know its father.

She knew there had to be a reason he went up and left. Sooner or later, she knew she had to find out why.

…

As she was about to go into her second trimester, Maria knew she had to get as much done as she could before the precinct forced her behind a desk. She became so serious about staying active in the department, she even allowed her partner to accompany her to an ultrasound appointment.

Memories flooded Danny's mind as he stood in the exam room beside Maria. Those of being at Linda's side in that same situation; when they were expecting their boys what seemed like too long ago. This time of course was much different.

Baez didn't want anything getting in the way of them being able to discuss probabilities for the case, which made it clear for Danny to stay professional and go along with her proposition. He knew too well not to mess with a pregnant lady!

Still, his expression softened as their conversation was interrupted by the technician, who brought Maria's attention to the monitor, and the fuzzy black and white silhouette of the delicate unborn being.

"Look at that," Danny murmured.

She looked over at him. "What have I gotten myself into, Reagan?" she grimaced.

"Hey." He put his hand gently to her shoulder. "If anyone can do this, it's you."

The next dozen weeks that passed were a roller coaster for the two detectives. The sergeant deliberately attempted to place them on low risk cases, but the partners fought back with a casual mention of a threat to claim a violation of the PDA (pregnancy discrimination act).

With the rift between her and Ana driving her family away, she was left doing most of the arrangements for the baby on her own. That is until Danny's wife, niece, and sister got wind of it, and surprised her with a baby shower. The Reagan women gathered friends and coworkers to offer their congratulations and shower the mother to be with plenty of everything both she and her child would need.

This brought Maria much closer to Linda and Erin; they had definitely become like second sisters to her ever since she and Danny were paired up.

Now more than ever her partner was determined on fulfilling his promise to never disappoint her and to always have her back. Out on the streets or at their desks in the station, he was always there at her side.

…

Danny was surprised to walk into the station one morning, and find his partner was not at her desk.

Then again, he should have expected this might happen, since her scheduled maternity leave was set to begin at the end of the week. She might have decided to start it early, or even already be in the hospital.

But according to the other officers, she hadn't called in to give notice. So Danny tried calling her himself, but it went straight to voicemail.

"Baez, it's Reagan. If it's that time, give me or the station a ring when you can."

At his lunch hour, he stopped by her apartment and found it locked and cluttered with yesterday's mail stuck in the slot. He had been to visit her before, and Maria was quite the neat freak since she had started prepping for the big event. It certainly was off that all this mess was still here.

Danny pulled out his phone and dialed Linda's number. "Hey, can you see if Baez is there? She hasn't been in all day, and I'm at her place right now and she's not answering."

"No. No, I don't see her in the system," Linda answered after a few moments. "She probably would've had me call you anyways if she did. Danny, what's going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out!"

He hung up and went knocking on the door across from his partner's. An older woman, around her mid-fifties, stepped out and introduced herself as Laura Campbell. After confirming that she was acquainted with Baez, he explained the situation and asked if she had seen her lately.

"Oh, not since yesterday morning when she was going to church," Mrs. Campbell shook her head. "For the past three months I've been meeting her afterwards to help her get things ready for that baby, but I never heard from her. I thought maybe she'd gone into work or to see her mother…"

"She told me the father lived in this building for a while," Danny said. "You wouldn't happen to know who he was?"

"Oh, not personally," she replied. "I did see him only once, the day he moved in. 12B on the second floor."

Danny took the stairs to the next level and found the door to the apartment loose enough to break through the lock. The front room was empty, but with a faint amount of familiar white powder scattered beneath the window to the fire escape.

"Damn it!" This wasn't good.

Back at the station, Danny searched through the precinct's criminal history, his eyes darting from the screen down to the leasing paperwork he had obtained from the building's landlord.

Apparently Baez's runaway beau was some clean cut guy named Ty Vega. Or at least what these documents showed; it was a possibility he could have created a false identity so he couldn't be traced.

No names matched, but there were mug shots. Danny pulled out the printed copy of the driver's license and held it up next to the screen of his computer.

Scrolling, scrolling, until finally…a match. Same short, curly brown hair, same piercing brown eyes, same caramel skin with a faded scar beneath the left side of his chin.

 _Tyrus Villegas. Arrested August 17_ _th_ _2015 for illegal possession of drugs, association with 10-10 N. Failure to attend court ruling; current whereabouts unknown._

August…almost nine months ago. He probably hadn't even been undercover for more than a few days before his date with Maria.

He sent the file through to the records technician, asking for any names Villegas was and could still be associated with that had a history with the law.

"Reagan!" Lieutenant Carver entered the office space and approached him at his desk. "We got through to her family; most recent they saw her was last week, Thursday evening."

Danny sighed. Mrs. Baez was probably going out of her mind after hearing about this.

"I think we can officially call this a missing person's." Carver declared.

"Yeah well, I did some looking in," the detective interrupted. "More like a kidnapping. Got the suspect with a history of involvement in a nine-six-six."

The lieutenant over at his computer, then nodded.

"Requested any other names?"

"Waiting on the system for them now."

Soon some files came up. It looked like Villegas was only a right hand in the deal, taking orders from a Mateo Davalos, who had been convicted a week after along with his partner Andre Ledezma.

Apparently while Abalos was still currently serving a six-year sentence, Ledezma had been released recently for good behavior and was on parole.

"Guess I'm hunting down an old friend of his," Danny noted. He scanned and printed Ledezma's information then grabbed his badge and keys as he headed out.

"May have just found our only connection to the punk." He murmured.

…

Danny pulled the car up to the curb and looked from the document to the number of the apartment building. It was a match; it's where he'd find Ledezma. He strode in and tracked down the former convict's door.

"Andre? Open up, this is Detective Reagan." He called through the door frame, knocking loudly.

There was silence for a moment, then the sound of unlocking near the knob on the other side.

The door opened slightly, halted by a security chain. A tall dark eyed figure peered outside at his unexpected visitor.

"I haven't done nothin'," he asserted sharply. "Can't I get one day without cops breathing down my neck?!"

"Take it easy! I'm here to ask about Tyrus Villegas. Seen him lately?"

Ledezma froze, then slammed the door. In a second, it opened completely and Danny stepped in.

"That wuss? What'd he do?" Ledezma suddenly got angry. "God, if he ever squealed about…"

"Easy, it's nothing to do with that," Danny told him. "He kidnapped a woman, and she's having his kid."

"Woah." Ledezma shoved his hands in his pockets. "Guess he was right about him being crazy."

"Who?"

"His cousin, Diego Santino. Worked with us; Mateo owed him a favor so he let him bring in Ty."

"Said he had a rough time growing up- saw his mom and pop killed when he was five back in Puerto Rico, was out on his own until Santino's parents brought him to the States."

"Abandonment issues?" the detective inquired. "PTSD?"

"I guess," Ledezma shrugged, then continued. "Probably explains why he just disappeared after Santino kicked it. Shot down during the big raid."

Danny nodded. "Do you have any idea where he might go to?" he asked with all seriousness.

"Not really," Andre shook his head.

With an exasperated sigh, Danny turned and headed out. "Thanks for your time."

After some last few hours searching through records, trying to find any sort of hints that could lead him to Villegas…and Baez, he returned home stressed and exhausted.

He sat on the couch, rubbing his eyes with his head in his hands as Linda walked in.

"Any luck?" she asked gently.

He looked up at her and said nothing. That was all she needed; she sat next to him and let him rest against her shoulder.

"You're gonna find him," Linda comforted her husband.

Danny sighed. "Yeah. If he doesn't try to do something stupid first."

…

3 A.M.

 _This is the phone for Detective Danny Reagan. Leave a message._

 **BEEP.**

" _Danny! It's Baez! I was able to get my phone- he… went somewhere. Please, please find me! He keeps saying… 'you won't leave me too!' He's…completely lost it! Please, you have to come quick, I'm at…no…no wait! No! NO!"_

 **CLICK.**

 _ **We're sorry, the number that has called you is no longer in service.**_

…

Hearing his partner's frantic voicemail that next morning was almost the last straw. Danny rushed from the house back to the precinct and furiously went through the files over and over, hoping to find something he may have missed.

"Come on, you son of a bitch!" he hissed, scrolling through the system on his computer.

He paused. He found a familiar name- _Diego Santino_.

Of course; if his cousin's family members were documented as New York citizens, then their paperwork, along with their local history, would still be in the city records.

Danny rushed up to the department of records as quickly as the city traffic would allow him and was granted access the second he pulled out his badge.

Unfortunately there were about a dozen different Santino's on file. He grabbed them all from the shelf in a huff and started flipping through the first few. His eyes scanned through paper upon paper, trying to find Diego's name.

At last he found him, in the fifth or sixth file, listed as the only child of Jose and Florica Santino.

To Danny's dismay, the couple had recently gone back to their country after the death of their son, which explained the red marking on the folder. The staff was probably getting ready to archive the family's records from the system.

He scanned the papers one more time and caught something- the residency & address list, with only one location on it.

Was it possible Villegas was there? Where it had all started? After remembering what Ledezma had told him about him, did it seem plausible that he only place he'd end up would be the apartment he grew up in and kept his inner demons bottled up inside until he lost control?

Danny was just going to have to find out.

…

The apartment house was small, but appeared to have been suited with multiple suites for a number of families. Now it appeared the entire complex was condemned and deserted, with the door chained and windows barred and locked.

Danny noticed the small alleyway separating the building from its neighbor to its right. IF there was no way for anyone to get in the conventional way, then Villegas probably snuck in through a side entrance.

He snuck behind the corner of the wall and peered out into the open space of the alley. There was a single door, and it was opened just a crack. Quickly he slipped inside and found himself in a darkened hallway.  
Right away he saw an old wooden staircase in the center of the room, and then on each side a faint light hinting the entrance to two other halls leading to all the empty apartments on this floor.

As Danny was taking a moment to try and decide which way to go, he got his answer. A faint but familiar female voice was coming from upstairs.

"Baez!" He quietly hurried up the steps, following his partner's sounds of distress to a slightly opened door. He snuck inside pulling his gun from its holster.

Step by step he inched his way across the empty front room, looking around at the remnants of chipped paint and broken pieces of small furniture. A dilapidated cased opening stood on the right side towards the end of the wall, and within the next room there was a man's silent murmuring. Beneath it, Danny could make out a woman's heavy anguished breathing.

Bracing himself for confrontation, Danny gripped his piece in his hand and burst in.

"Don't come any closer!"

Villegas knelt there waiting with a gun of his own, the barrel pressed into the side of a terrified Baez's head, as he held her down to him by the shoulders.

"No one's gonna take my family from me," he trembled. "Not anymore."

Lowering his weapon, Danny held up a hand cautiously. "Ty, listen…"

"Shut up!" Villegas ordered, damp sweaty wisps of his dark hair stuck to his forehead. He pulled the gun away from Baez's skull, pointing it downward right to her pregnant form.

"This. This is _my_ child. My family…" He started to shake, his voice wavering. "They just…they keep leaving me."

Maria looked at her partner, pleading. "Danny, he's…" She choked, Villegas crushing her chest beneath his arm. "You shut your mouth!" he hissed bringing the gun back up to her head.

"Hey!" Danny yelled. "You even think about…"

"I know what she thinks! What they all think, that I'm crazy! They all think I'm crazy!"

Ty stood still, looking the detective straight in the eye. "Well, I'm not. I'm not…you really think cops would let a kid be around a father like me?"

Danny didn't respond.

"Exactly," Villegas smirked. "So I'm doing what I gotta do. Because I deserved a family through all this Goddamn hell!"

Suddenly, Maria gasped. She wrenched one of her arms free, and it went straight to her belly.

Danny's gaze went straight to her and he stepped forward, only to be met by Villegas' gun pointing right at him.

"I said back off!" Villegas looked from him down to Baez. "You stay away from her, she's fine."

"Yeah, well she doesn't look fine." Danny took a step back, but kept his eye on his partner. Ty kept his grip on her.

"She's been like this already, so just forget it!"

"For how long?"

Villegas scoffed. "Are you trying to play me? It don't matter!"

"Hey, you bet your ass it matters!" Danny asserted, his brow furrowing. "How long?"

The perpetrator blinked, his eyes going back to Maria hunched over her abdomen under his grasp.

"Since I got her here…yesterday."

Danny's jaw clenched, taking in a deep breath.

"Okay. Ty, listen. She's in labor. You can't keep this up anymore, you know she needs to go to the hospital."

"No!" Villegas leapt to his feet and threw Baez to the floor, aiming the piece at him again.

"She doesn't leave!" Ty ordered. "It's MY KID!"

Baez sat up slowly, terror in her eyes as she watched the two men above her.

Then she doubled over with a moan, and felt splattering against her thighs. She froze. "Danny…" she whimpered.

Danny felt his body temperature rising; her water had broken. He knew she didn't have much time left now.

He tried reasoning. "Okay, fine! Fine, if she doesn't get to leave, you have to let me step in then."

Villegas didn't even flinch.

"Look, this baby's not waiting around." Danny nodded to Baez, his eyes going from her back to her captor. "Alright, I've had training for this, and I have my own kids I've seen born."

"You want what's best for yours? Then you let me help her."

Ty bit his lip, his eyes going to the distressed woman on the floor. Looking back up at Danny, he nodded.

"If you try anything…" he seethed, his voice trembling as he watched the detective go to her side.

"Yeah, I got it!" Danny nodded, having heard those words by so many others.

He put his arm around Baez, trying to help her sit up. "How you holding up, partner?" he said gently.

"How do you think?!" she grimaced, pressing her hand to her back and looking at Villegas, still glaring at them from behind her partner. "Reagan, I've got to get out; I can't do this here!" she panicked.

"Hey, calm down," he comforted her, then leaned in close. "Listen: I promise, we're gonna get out of here. Just trust me…you still trust me, right Baez?"

Maria's eyes softened, and she nodded. "You know I do."

Then almost in an instant, she moaned again and clutched her middle.

"Woah, easy!" Danny held her up beneath her arms, and she grabbed onto his hands. "Breathe, okay? Breathe."

"Oh my God!" she groaned through her teeth. "Are you _sure_ you can handle this?"

He nodded, slipping his jacket off one arm at a time while still holding her. "It's been a few years, but I remember the basics."

Villegas came up right behind them, his face cold but intent on the mother of his child. Baez tensed up, and Danny looked up at him.

"Hey, back up," he instructed.

"It's my kid!" Ty argued.

"Yeah, well not yet!" Danny retaliated. "Not until he or she enters the world, so you give the mother room to focus, alright?"

A guttural cry erupted from Baez, sending Villegas to the far corner of the room.

"Danny, it's happening!" she gasped, grabbing onto his shoulder. "It's happening; the baby's coming now!"

Carefully, he moved her to an open spot against the wall beneath a window. It definitely wasn't the perfect spot to give birth, but given the situation it was probably as good as it was going to get.

"I'm gonna need your jacket, too, okay?" Danny told her. Carefully he helped her sit up as she slipped the dark blazer off her shoulders and gave it to her partner who spread it out beneath them.

Maria fell back against the wall, slipping her hand underneath the navy blue formal dress she still had on from church that past Sunday. Pulling hard, she ripped her underwear away as another pain wracked her body.

Danny's stomach was in knots as he looked from his partner to Villegas, still in the corner but with his gun aimed at both of them.

"Okay," he said slowly as he glanced at his watch, then slipped it off his wrist. "Less than a minute between contractions. Let's do this." He rolled his sleeves up and undid his tie, tossing it aside.

Baez nodded, propping her legs up with her knees bent.

"You better not be screwing me!" Ty called over. Maria opened her mouth to shout right back at him, but instead she cried out.

"Yeah, I don't think so!" Danny called over his shoulder. He moved in closer between her legs. "Baez, go for it. Push."

…

It was tense few minutes while the contractions came stronger and faster as she continued to bear down. At one point she grabbed hold of her partner's upper arm, digging her fingers into his bicep.

"Ah!" Maria gasped falling back against the wall, panting hard.

"Okay, good. You're doing good." Danny encouraged her.

She sighed heavily then started to break down. "No…no something's not right! It shouldn't be taking this long!"

"Hey, hey nothing is wrong," he promised. "It's…"

He stopped. Suddenly, he had an idea. Locking eyes with her, he put his hand to her knee and gave her an intent look.

 _Trust me,_ his eyes read. She nodded, sniffling.

Danny reached into his back pocket for his cell phone. Villegas started back towards them, cocking his piece.

"What you think you're doing?" he barked.

"There might be a problem," the detective lied. "Okay, all I want to do is call my wife, okay? She's a nurse. She can tell me what to do, I won't tell her where we are or anything else!"

Villegas lowered the gun. He stood still a moment, then turned away.

"I guess that's a yes," Danny huffed, dialing Linda's number.

"Hello?"

"Honey? It's me. Look I've got a situation here; I'm with Baez."

"Oh, thank God!" Linda exclaimed. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, for now. We're on our own and she's having the baby."

"What!? Danny…!"

"I know, I know, just forget that right now." He exhorted. "Look, I think there's a complication."

Peering back behind him, he saw Ty had his back turned. Then he pressed the receiver close to his chin, whispering.

"Babe, listen. I'm fine and she's fine, both of them are. I just need you to call the station, and have them send the squad out here with an ambulance. We're in…"

A rough hand grabbed at his wrist and pulled. Danny's finger slipped and hung up the call as Villegas shoved him across the filthy floor, the phone falling out of his reach.

"You think I'm really that stupid, you bastard?!" Villegas shouted.

Danny dove for his legs, knocking him down.

"No!" Baez shrieked, watching helplessly as the men fought against each other. Her partner struggled to wrestle the gun from Ty's hands.

They pulled back and forth, kicking and punching and grunting as their fight went on.

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny spotted his own gun sitting abandoned on the floor near his foot. Reaching out his leg, he tried to kick it upwards to bring it towards him. Villegas suddenly pounced onto his chest and knock the wind out of him and the glock out of view.

The hard steel of the head of his opponent's weapon dug into his sternum. He looked up to see Ty staring at him, face sweaty and his eyes bloodshot as he cocked the gun.

"I will do _anything_ to keep my child with me." He snarled, his finger inches from the trigger. "Even if it means ending another life!"

Suddenly a shot rang out and Villegas stumbled back, freeing Danny.

Another shot, and then he collapsed to the ground, blood pooling from his neck.

Danny looked over and saw Baez, breathing heavily, sitting up against the wall with his gun in her hands.

"Yeah, so will she," he breathed. He hurried back over to her.

"You okay?" she asked, putting the gun down and wincing as she felt the next contraction starting.

"Oh, you're worrying about me?" Danny said as she groaned at the pain engulfing her body once again. He retrieved his phone from the floor and called in.

"Five-four detective ten-thirteen. I need a nine-oh-one h, and nine-oh-one forthwith for a ten-one ex; twenty-four d-three, arriving any minute. We're at 33 Warwick, in Brownsville. Repeat, 33 Warwick!"

He hung up and looked back at Baez, slumped back on the wall, overwhelmed and exhausted from the chaos.

"See? It's gonna be fine, I told you it'd be fine," he said. "Just go ahead and keep pushing."

"No!" she cried. "No, I can't do this anymore!" She shook her head, shutting her eyes tightly.

"Hey, yes you can." Danny consoled her. "Baez, look at me…Maria!"

She opened her eyes.

"You're my partner, and when you've lasted with me this long, you know you can't give up anything," he said firmly. "And there's no way I'm letting you give up being a mom."

Maria took a deep breath, and nodded.

In a moment, another contraction hit and she was bearing down once again.

"There you go," Danny coached her. "That's it, good girl. Push!"

It wasn't long before Baez's pain suddenly turned the absolute worst, with white-hot burning piercing the center of her lower region.

She shrieked.

"Okay, okay, it's crowning! I see its head!" Danny said firmly but with some encouragement. "You're almost there, Baez, just one more time. Come on!"

Gathering up the last of her strength, she gave a long, hard push…and then it was over. A tiny wail erupted in the room.

Maria looked down and started crying as she saw her newborn child squirming in Danny's hands. He was laughing in awe as he held up the infant.

"It's a girl! You got a little baby girl," he marveled. Swaddling her in his jacket, he laid her in the crook of her mother's arm.

"Oh, my little _carino_ ," Maria comforted her daughter, whose itty bitty hand grasped on of her fingers as she gently smoothed her delicate pink face.

"You did good, partner," Danny murmured.

Sirens of their long awaited backup finally approached outside as the two detectives sat there, watching over the brand new life that had just begun.

…

 _ **2 days later…**_

"She is just perfect."

Maria smiled at Linda who gently reached over and fixed the tiny sleeve of her baby girl's new homecoming outfit, a gift from Mrs. Campbell.

"Ava Daniella," Baez watched her daughter's peaceful sleeping face. "Perfect in every way."

The three of them walked out of the hospital lobby, and found Danny crouched inside the back door of his partner's car.

He stood up and saw the ladies coming. "Hey! Just in time, it's all set."

"You sure about that, Danny?" his wife asked teasingly.

"It's a car seat," he said annoyed. "How much more complicated can they make 'em after fifteen years?"

Baez rolled her eyes and gently adjusted baby Ava in her arms as she approached the back of the car.

"Thank you, godpapa," she chuckled as she motioned for Danny to stand aside for her to get the newborn settled in.

He smiled. It still seemed like a joke; just giving her his name, or rather a variation of it had seemed enough. His partner had insisted though – she would never be able to repay him for being there with her and helping bring her child into the world.

As the detectives drove off for her old neighborhood, Maria felt a flood of mixed emotions. Sure some of it had to do with her being postpartum, but there was definitely influence from her going home to her family.

They pulled up to the building, where her mother and sister stood outside waiting. With her daughter held close to her chest, Baez slowly walked up to them, and saw both Ana and her mom had tears in their eyes.

Her sister threw her arms around her. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

Mrs. Baez came up beside her daughters and choked up at the sight of her baby girl with her very own baby, her first grandchild, safe and sound.

Danny watched the three women together, warmth and content settling into him knowing that he had kept his word to Baez.

He'd continue to, and now more than ever, for her…and for his goddaughter.


End file.
